A couple detained by Turkish police on their way to wedding ceremony over alleged Gülen links

Turkish government has increased the level of its persecution in the framework of its massive post-coup witch hunt campaign targeting the alleged followers of the Gülen movement on Sunday. Turkish police teams have detained a couple on their way to the wedding ceremony in Uşak province on Sunday.

Bride Emine Çetik

It was posted in social media accounts that bride Emine Çetik and bridegroom Aykut Kutlu were detained by police teams as they were on their way to the Makasbaşı Wedding Hall, where their wedding ceremony to be held, in Uşak Province. It was reported that the wedding ceremony was planned to be held at 2:00 pm on Sunday. However, the bride and bridegroom were stopped and detained by police teams at 01:00 pm on their way to the wedding hall.

Police teams have transferred the bride Emine Çetik and bridegroom Aykut Kutlu with their special wedding costums to local police station. The guests in the wedding hall have waited for hours for the bride and the bridegroom to enter to the wedding hall.

Turkey survived a controversial military coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that killed over 240 people. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with Turkey’s autocratic President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement.

Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the movement, strongly denied having any role in the failed coup and called for an international investigation into it, but President Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the government initiated a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting participants of the Gülen movement in jails.

Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ has announced on July 7, 2017 that at least 50,504 people have been arrested and 168,801 have been the subject of legal proceedings (investigations, detentions etc.) in Turkey in the framework of the Turkish government’s massive post-coup witch hunt campaign targeting alleged members of the Gülen movement since the controversial coup attempt on July 15, 2016. Also, arrest warrants have been issued for 8,069 people, according to Bozdağ.